The Player (Rouge Passion #1) Read online

  ‘I’m sure I can take whatever alleged onslaught you could unleash upon me. And what’s more, I’d match it,’ she declared, still determined not to let him win, although she wasn’t sure exactly what they were competing over any more.

  ‘So you say . . . words are cheap, Red but action – rough, mind-blowing, fucking action – that’s where the proof is.’ As if to drive home his message, he flexed his cock and slid his fingers inside her knickers then continued to move them in little circles around her clitoris. Only faster. Much faster.

  ‘So . . .?’ she managed between shallow breaths.

  ‘So prove it.’ Then he kissed her. He kissed her as he said he’d fuck her. Hard. Brutal. Unrelenting. And she matched him, just as she would if they fucked.

  Breathless and aroused beyond anything either of them had previously experienced, they eventually pulled apart. Pulses raced, oxytocin flowed, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that they needed to fuck. Right now.

  Xander abruptly withdrew his hand and stood, taking a moment to fasten his jacket in an attempt to hide the raging hard-on that lurked beneath. Then he grasped her hand and pulled her up. ‘I need to be inside you, preferably within the next thirty seconds. Come.’

  ‘Oh, I intend to,’ she panted as he almost pulled her off her feet. It was an indication of how pissed she was and how desperate he was.

  ‘And you will. Repeatedly. If I can get you upstairs. You’re tipsy.’

  He steered her into the lift and pushed the button for the top floor.

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten shomething?’ she slurred.

  ‘You’re pissed . . . no, you’re fucking hammered! Oh for fuck’s sake, Red!’

  She giggled. ‘Not as pished as you’ll be in . . . in a minute when you realise . . . haven’t booked a room.’

  The lift stopped and the doors opened. ‘I don’t need to book a room, I already have one. Now come on, let’s get you sobered up.’

  ‘Boo!’ she said, trying to grab his belt. ‘That’s no fun. Can’t we just fuck?’

  He gave a heavy sigh, wrapped his arms around her and practically frogmarched her out of the lift and along the corridor, cursing whenever she lost her footing and almost taking them both down.

  He reached into his jacket pocket, brought out a room key and attempted to slide it into the lock. It took several attempts because Isla kept leaning away from him, so that they were both precariously close to falling.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a lightweight?’ he muttered as he half-pinned her to the door, his patience fading fast.

  A beep signalled success and before he knew it, Isla had turned the handle. With her weight and some of his against the door, it flew open, sending them both sprawling on to the floor.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Red,’ he groaned as he rolled off her.

  ‘What you moaning for? You . . . you . . . landed on me. I hit the floor,’ she complained, her words slurring together. She managed to roll on to her back and grinned at him.

  ‘Nothing. Forget it. I’m going to make you coffee. Lots of coffee.’ Shaking his head, he got to his feet and attempted to pull her up. It proved to be an impossible task so he half-carried, half-dragged her to the sofa and propped her upright at one end. ‘Don’t move until I get back.’

  He strode across to the air conditioning control and turned it down a few degrees before leaving the room from one of several doors that Isla could see.

  She began to look around her and realised there was no bed. What kind of hotel room is this anyway? You can’t stay in a hotel room with no bed! She frowned hard and then exclaimed aloud, ‘Bloody hell, he must’ve booked a suite for us to have our fuckfest in!’ But how could he? He hasn’t left my side. Her brain struggled to figure out the conundrum but she knew something wasn’t quite right.

  Chapter Four

  Her alcohol fogged brain finally managed to fit the pieces together just as Xander walked back in carrying a large, steaming mug of coffee.

  ‘You already booked the room!’ she cried, the realisation sobering her faster than any coffee could. ‘You bastard, you thought I was a foregone conclusion!’

  His expression turned stony and he stopped in his tracks. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  She sat forward and glared at him, her mind suddenly crystal clear. ‘Yeah, like you didn’t deliberately get me pissed either. Is that what you have to do to get women into bed . . . ply them with alcohol until they’re a dead cert? Well, I’m sorry, Xander, but I have more self-respect than that. If you’re quick, you might just have time to go and find some slapper to bring back here so that you haven’t splashed cash on a suite only for it to go to waste.’

  ‘Finished?’

  She glared at him, thinking how the arrogant fuck didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. He just stood there with a look of disappointment on his face. She stood and pulled down her dress which had ridden up her thighs.

  ‘Finished with you. And don’t you dare try to make my life a misery in the office because I’ll have you before an employment tribunal before you can say the words sexual harassment.’

  ‘Now are you finished?’ He looked distinctly annoyed.

  Yeah, annoyed you were rumbled. Her skin crawled at the sight of him and the near miss she’d had.

  ‘Yeah, I’m finished playing the fool. I’m going home to my own bed and I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. Before then, I suggest you do a little research into appropriate working relationships because I swear if you put one foot wrong—’

  ‘I’ll see you in court . . . yeah, yeah, I get it. I assure you that you have nothing to worry about on that score. And if you’d climb down from your high horse for just one second, it would allow me to show you what a twat you’re making of yourself.’

  Isla laughed. ‘Oh I see . . . you get me tipsy, take me to dinner – not in any old restaurant but one inside a fancy hotel – continue to get me pissed and just happen to have pre-booked a room, no a whole suite, for the night . . . I see through your low-life plan and I’m the twat? Pull your head out from where it appears to be wedged so far up your own arse that it’s giving you verbal diarrhoea for just a moment so I can tell you to fuck off to your face!’

  He advanced towards her with a menacing look on his face, making Isla smugly believe that she’d touched a nerve. ‘I own this hotel, Red. This suite is mine to use whenever I like. And, believe it or not, I don’t make a habit of bringing women here. I brought you to the restaurant here because the food is fantastic and I knew I could get a quiet table so that we could continue our business discussion.’

  She stood, blinking in disbelief. ‘Oh,’ was all she could manage to say.

  ‘Yes, I gave you a few drinks at the office and I admit I had an ulterior motive. You weren’t relaxed around me. You either looked like you wanted to murder me or rip my clothes off. I thought a few drinks would help us to relax and discuss the hotel’s failings properly without any of that other stuff getting in the way and it did. The electric fence that you have around you short-circuited after a few drinks. I also assumed that a woman of your age who turns up to work on a Tuesday morning, suffering from a hangover, could handle a few drinks.’

  ‘I can handle anything but wine,’ she said, as her brain tried to determine whether or not she should believe him.

  ‘So why drink it?’ he asked. ‘And why the hell would I be making you coffee and trying to sober you up if my intention was to get you pissed so I could take advantage of you?’

  She had to admit, what he said made sense but she wasn’t the type to back down easily.

  ‘Maybe you decided that I was too pissed to be worth shagging,’ she retorted but it sounded lame, even to her ears. The fight had gone out of her but no way was she going to apologise for jumping to very obvious conclusions.

  His eyes pierced hers in a predatory way. ‘Believe me, Red, the way I fuck it might be in your best interests to be pissed out of your skull, but I’d decided it might
be too dangerous to fuck you when you were that pissed.’

  Too dangerous? She swallowed, taken aback by his words and the fact that her brain had slammed into overdrive. Her mind filled with images of a naked Xander engaging in every sexual practice that her own experiences could conjure up, but none of them could be described as dangerous, not even close!

  ‘Well, Red, you sure managed to deflate my hard-on in record speed!’

  She blinked back the X-rated images and noticed that his expression had mellowed.

  ‘It seems you can soften my cock as quickly as you make it hard.’ He stepped right up to her. ‘Just looking at you heats my veins, cuts off the blood supply to my brain, and diverts it to my cock. Look, I can see how you got the wrong idea. I can see how it looked. But I promise you, my motives are pure . . . pure lust . . . pure, transparent lust. Nothing more, nothing less. I desire you. I desire to be inside you . . . balls deep and roaring as I climax, feeling your pussy explode around my cock. Is that so wrong? Would that be so bad?’

  No. Yes. No. I don’t fucking know!

  He cupped her face with his hand. ‘The choice is yours but decide quickly . . . you’re making me hard again and if I get fully erect, I’m fucking you till you scream my name . . . over and over until this night is forever burned in your memory.’

  Without conscious thought, her hand crept to his groin and she verified that he did indeed have a hard-on. He took this as a gesture of acceptance and she felt his cock leap under her hand as his mouth sought hers. The last coherent thought to run through her mind was that at least she’d come out on top. A thought that would come back to haunt her on more than one occasion.

  His hands roamed her curves as he kissed her, pausing now and then to admire the shape of her body. She, in turn, rubbed his trouser-covered cock and squeezed his arse until he broke away declaring, ‘Enough. I need to see you naked. Strip. Now.’ Then he sat down on the sofa and waited.

  Fleetingly, thoughts of how she’d put on weight in the last few months, courtesy of comfort food and lack of exercise, ran through her mind. She’d always been curvy and had never had body image issues but her confidence had been knocked in the recent past. And now she was a voluptuous size sixteen. What if he was disgusted by the plump softness of her body? As if reading her mind, he admonished her. ‘Take your clothes off and show me that beautiful, shapely, womanly body so that I can worship every single inch of it. And prove to me that your collar matches your cuffs.’

  She giggled at his turn of phrase but his tactic worked and she felt her confidence grow. She knew that men found confidence and attitude as sexy as any supermodel’s body, so she found herself putting on an act that was almost worthy of a burlesque dancer as she slowly and seductively removed her dress. Standing there in her heels, bra and knickers, she began to caress her soft, pale skin, never taking her eyes off his for a moment.

  She watched him shift his position and rearrange his cock as his eyes and laboured breathing conveyed his hunger. Her confidence soared as she reached behind her and unfastened her bra, managing to hold the cups in place. She teasingly lowered it slightly before covering up again. She saw his nostrils flare and a sheen of sweat break out on his brow. He’s like a grand-prize-winning racehorse at the starting gate. Or a stallion ready to take me on a wild, wild ride!

  She abruptly dropped the bra and shook her heavy, rounded breasts, watching his eyes widen in delicious anticipation before he licked his lips.

  ‘Oh, Red,’ he moaned. ‘You have a body that was made for fucking.’ He unfastened his belt, loosened his trousers and shoved his hand inside. She could see him gently stroking his cock beneath his clothing. She fervently wished that was her hand, but she hadn’t reached her finale yet.

  She hooked her thumbs inside her knickers on her hips and prepared to reveal all . . . in her own good time, of course. Fuck! Oh fuck! In the last few months, she’d continued to get her legs waxed every few weeks but, in addition to saving money, she hadn’t felt the need to get her bikini area waxed. She turned around and wiggled her arse seductively while trailing her fingers up and down the backs of her thighs, as much to give her thinking time as to put on a performance. But there was no escape. She knew she’d just have to bare her untrimmed bush and he’d have to lump it.

  She turned back to face him and began to inch down her panties. He had frozen and was staring at her groin as though he was mesmerised. When they cleared her hips, they fell to pool around her feet. She stepped out of them then nudged the toe of her shoe under them and kicked them away to the side, giving him a quick glimpse of what lay beneath her coppery pubic hair.

  His lips pulled back, revealing bared teeth and, at first, she thought it was in distaste but then, when his eyes flicked from her pussy to her face she saw it was pure, animalistic need.

  ‘Turn around,’ he growled. ‘Then bend over and grasp your ankles with your feet apart.’

  She raised an eyebrow, not used to giving anyone the upper hand. But something told her that she’d be wasting her time, and possibly spoiling her enjoyment, if she chose to attempt to top him. So she turned and obeyed.

  ‘Oh, you dirty bitch,’ he whispered from right behind her. ‘You beautiful, sexy, dirty bitch.’

  She bristled with indignation at his words and began to straighten up, ready to give him a piece of her mind. But at that moment, he buried his face in her soft, moist folds . . . and began to eat her like he was an hour from starvation and she was a leg of lamb. A firm hand on her back pushed her back down fully and held her there as he unleashed not just his tongue, but his whole face on her. There was no soft licking or nuzzling like she was used to.

  In fact, without his steadying hand on her back and his arm around her leg, he might well have knocked her over with the force of his face pressing into her as he sucked everywhere, occasionally shaking his head and moaning loudly. It was sensation overload. Every now and again, she’d hear him suck in a deep lungful of air, otherwise she’d have thought he was holding his breath. It was wet and noisy and utterly feral. If she’d witnessed someone else in the act, she’d probably have thought it was disgusting, but then she wouldn’t be feeling what she was feeling as that mouth forced her mind – and her legs – wide open. Every so often he’d break from her for a few seconds to make vulgar yet complimentary comments about how she tasted.

  She’d never come easily; always taking time to build and sometimes being left frustrated when her partner had climaxed before her. More than once she’d lain there afterwards and pleasured herself, as much out of defiance as need. But now her orgasm was bearing down on her like a thirty-two-tonne truck down a steep hill and, when it hit her, she felt a little like she’d been hit by one. She cried out, her voice hoarse and gravelly, and her knees buckled as her world appeared to turn upside down.

  Xander caught her as she fell, slid his arms underneath her and marched into the bedroom. He threw her on to the bed, began to unfasten his shirt but then paused. Isla lay there panting, wondering what the hell had just happened and what was about to happen next. She’d never experienced anything like his raw, feral approach. His coarse language and unashamedly filthy comments had shocked her. She’d felt like confronting him yet, and she couldn’t believe she was admitting this, even to herself, she’d felt turned on by the no frills naughtiness of it all. In day-to-day life, she liked people who said it like it was, but she’d never had a sexual partner who was so blatant about his needs and his thoughts.

  She noticed him regarding her shrewdly and felt herself begin to blush. He always seemed to know what she was thinking, damn him, and it seemed that this time was no exception.

  ‘Are you okay, Red? If you’re having doubts then we don’t have to do this. But once I get started, I find it incredibly difficult to stop. I know that’s not good and I’m not proud of it but I’m just levelling with you. If we begin and you want to stop, you’ll have to make it very obvious that you mean it because I might not be able to, especially if I thin
k you don’t really mean it. Sex with me is intense – a full-on experience that has proved to be too much for some women in the past. That’s not me bragging, that’s me being honest with you about what you’re getting yourself into. I don’t do foreplay nor tender making love. I fuck and yeah, you’re thinking you know what I mean but I very much doubt that, Red. When I fuck I’m like a wild animal at times and it’s like nothing else matters except fucking until I can’t fuck any more. I get lost in it. Totally. And unless you can take it, unless you can get past the fact that, to the uninitiated, it looks like I’m being selfish, that it’s all about me emptying my balls and you’re just there for the ride, like you’re just a collection of holes, then you’ll not enjoy the experience.’

  She was looking at him now with an expression of horror.

  He smiled. ‘But if you immerse yourself in it, you’ll realise that, when it comes to fucking, we’re still animals at heart and there’s immense pleasure for both parties – especially for the woman, who can climax much more often than the man and who has many more ways of experiencing pleasure than a man. Let’s face it, it’s really all about the cock for men. I’m not ashamed to admit that, but for women, there are so many delightful highly sensitive places for me to exploit to the max . . . and believe me, I will! Fucking with me will be an experience you never thought possible. And you’ll crave it. Again. And again. Obsessively. So you think about it, Red, as you lie there in all your glory, pushing me to the edge of my restraint just looking at your gorgeous body. You think about it good and hard. No games. No refusing to back out because you think I’ll think less of you or basically just because you’re such a stubborn creature at times. If it isn’t what you want or you think you can’t handle it, can’t handle me, then I’ll think more of you for having the guts to back out now. And there’ll be no fallout from this in the office. Do you understand what I’m asking of you?’

  She nodded, although she didn’t really have a clue what he was asking of her – it sounded awful but it sounded totally amazing and utterly tempting at the same time. She respected him for being honest with her and for giving her the chance to back out with her dignity intact. But she was curious. Nowhere in her imagination could she begin to identify with the experiences he described. But she wanted to. More than anything she’d ever wanted. And she didn’t want to just imagine them either.